SING SING CORRECTIONAL FACILITY is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in Ossining, New York. It houses about 1,700 incarcerated people and is located about 30 miles north of New York City on the bank of the Hudson River. Sing Sing's almost 200 year history earned it a worldwide reputation as a notorious prison, but it is unfair to recognize it only for those reasons. Today, Sing Sing is considered a model correctional facility with its innovative rehabilitation programs for the incarcerated. 
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Superintendent Capra at the first TEDx Sing Sing
When the public thinks about Prison, they associate it with punishment. When I think about Prison, I associate it with structure, security, discipline, education, vocation and families. I spend many hours thinking about putting 1,700 broken pieces back together so when they leave this place they will be prepared to be productive, educated, confident, employed,
​crime-free people.

– Michael Capra,  Superintendent, Sing Sing Correctional Facility​
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS). NYSDOCCS , guided by the Departmental Mission, is responsible for the confinement and rehabilitation of approximately 53,000 individuals under custody held at 54 state facilities and 36, 000 parolees supervised throughout seven regional offices. 

Correction Officers and the volunteers who work at Sing Sing are an important part of the story to be told at the Sing Sing Prison Museum. 

Hudson Link

Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison provides college education, life skills and re-entry support to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men and women to help them make a positive impact on their own lives, their families and communities, resulting in lower rates of recidivism, incarceration and poverty.

In the past 19 years, Hudson Link has awarded over 534 degrees through eight colleges and six correctional facilities. Hudson Link’s astonishingly low recidivism rate of less than 4% – compared to over 67% nationwide – is proof that the transformative power of education is far more cost effective than prison. Our graduates successfully rejoin their families and communities, obtaining meaningful employment and living healthy, productive lives.

At a cost of $60,000 per year to incarcerate a single person compared with $5,000 in annual tuition fees to educate them, Hudson Link’s programs have saved New York State taxpayers over $21 million per year – and that number continues to increase.

Voices From Within

The Voices From Within Project is a new and growing multimedia education initiative that uniquely addresses the epidemic of gun violence directly through the voices of inmates living with the consequences of their choices, and the victims left in their wake.

The Voices From Within Project was born inside the walls of Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York’s infamous maximum security prison, where a group of inmates decided to share their stories or help others share their stories to implore young adults to think about the consequences of their choices.

Alone in a room with only a camera to record them, inmates – none of whom had spoken publicly before about their crimes -- are given the opportunity to openly discuss how and why using a gun landed them in prison, and what life has been like for them since. 

RTA

As an artistic community in which members participate for years - even decades -Rehabilitation through the Arts (RTA) offers a dynamic and richly varied program. Each facility in which RTA works has a unique curriculum that reflects the interest of the group, the energy and ideas of RTA facilitators and the particular security concerns of prison administration.
​At any one time, RTA juggles at least a dozen workshops, a workshop presentation and one or two full productions. Workshops range from a one-session master class in jazz guitar to a year+ long project of script and character analysis, dance and music that build to performance of a Broadway musical. Modern dance has been successfully taught in two male facilities and a hip hop class was recently initiated in another; one prison has a particularly strong emphasis on visual arts, another on original writing.
​RTA is not a drop-in activity. RTA is not about becoming an actor. RTA is a commitment to a community of peers that uses the arts as a tool to support emotional, social and cognitive growth.